


Where You Go To Rest Your Bones

by deandratb



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10735791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: When Sam disappears after the special election, Josh follows to bring him back home. Unstoppable force meets immovable object...in close quarters with minimal clothes."Sam had always been sunshine and lemonade and puppies, more than any other political operative Josh had ever known. Bitterness didn’t suit him."





	Where You Go To Rest Your Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broken_hearted_bard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_hearted_bard/gifts).



> An early birthday gift. Happy almost-day-of-you!
> 
> Canon-compliant through the California 47th special election, though I took a little liberty with pre-series events. Set after "Red Haven's on Fire."

“I called you seventeen times,” Josh said by way of greeting when Sam answered the door. He pushed past Sam into his apartment, squinting his eyes in the darkness. “God, it’s a cave in here.”

“California sun. Late night.” Sam rubbed at his gritty eyes, trying to see the clock over Josh’s shoulder. “Is it two in the morning?”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed. “Five in D.C.”

The weeks on the campaign trail had aged Sam since Josh saw him last. He sounded different in the dark. Weary. “You couldn’t have waited until a more reasonable hour?”

“Nah, why bother?”

“Common courtesy, for one thing.” Sam sighed and shut the door behind him, turning on the light. “Well, you’re here. What did you come to say that you couldn’t have left in a message during one of those seventeen phone calls?”

“You know what I came to say.”

“Oh, god, Josh.” He closed his eyes, willing himself back to the blissful oblivion of sleep. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a dream. “No.”

“No? Just like that?”

“Yes. Just like that. You had to know what my answer would be, after all those missed calls.”

Josh frowned, deep furrows creasing his forehead. “Well, actually I thought that flying all the way across the country might get me a little more consideration.”

Sam yawned, trying to blink the tired away. “You have frequent flyer miles.”

“Still.” Josh raised hopeful eyebrows at him. “There was turbulence.”

“Oh, well, since there was turbulence…nope, still no.” Sam dropped onto his couch, gesturing for Josh to sit. Clearly they were going to have this out.

“Come on, Sam.” Josh pulled out the cajoling tone that he knew usually worked. “What are you going to do with your life that’s better than this? Come home.”

He blinked. Home. That was how he thought of the White House, deep down, secretly. Of course Josh would get that. They were family, and home, and he’d failed them. He couldn’t go back there, take their pity and a job that Will Bailey was better suited for anyway. It was time to move on.

“The weather sucks,” he replied lightly, avoiding the issue. “The pay is even worse.”

“That's crap,” Josh countered evenly. “You don’t care about the money. You never have.”

Sam shrugged. Josh wasn’t wrong. He’d made enough at Gage Whitney to be secure for decades, anyhow. “Not the point.”

“Then what’s the point?” 

“I’m not going back.”

Josh froze. He heard the finality in Sam’s voice and began to panic. “You’re not serious. I mean, sure, a little time to lick your wounds, a vacation, even…but not ever? You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Look at my face, Josh.”

He did, and his own crumpled. “Why not?”

“I don’t belong there anymore.”

“That’s idiotic. Of course you do. You write for the President, Sam. How many people can say that? How high up the food chain do you have to be to feel like you’re in the room?”

“I’m not talking about-” He cut himself off with a sigh. “That’s not what I mean. Why would I care about that?”

“Well, then-”

“I can’t help Toby the way he needs, Josh. That’s why I sent Will. I’ve been in the trenches too long and I can’t see past the weeds. I’m just…I’m so damn tired.”

Josh got up to sit next to him on the couch. “I get the feeling we’re not talking about my unexpected wake-up call now.”

“No.”

“Well, god, Sam, we’re all tired. I’m pretty sure Toby’s asleep on his feet half the time at this point. But we have to keep fighting. How else are we going to win?”

“Don’t you get it? That’s the whole point! I didn’t!” 

His words echoed in the dimly lit room as the silence stretched out between them.

Stunned by Sam’s explosion, Josh ran a hand through his hair and studied him. “Of course you didn’t.”

His wounded eyes met Josh’s. “I thought I could. That’s what I went there to do. I believed it was possible.”

“So did I,” Josh admitted. “I mean, we’ve seen worse odds.”

Sam quirked an eyebrow his way.

“Okay, maybe not. But close. It’s not like President Bartlet was a shoo-in the first time around…or the second.”

“What was it you said? That you wouldn’t allow me to look like a fool?” He sounded sour, like lemonade before the sugar got added. Sam had always been sunshine and lemonade and puppies, more than any other political operative Josh had ever known. Bitterness didn’t suit him.

“You acted like I had a shot. I believed it because I believed you. Josh, I just got destroyed out there.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Josh reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “I wanted it to be true. I was wrong.”

“I saw the national coverage on Donna and Perez,” Sam told him, changing the subject, even though he knew it wouldn’t work.

“It’ll blow over. One silver lining from your campaign was definitely that disaster of a meeting. She’s been reading books about communists now and going on these long tirades about manifestos and bread. It’s hilarious. Don’t you care that you’re missing it?”

“Of course I miss it!” Sam was insulted by the question. “I’m not exactly enjoying my existential crisis. But I can’t leave here until I decide where I'm going next.”

“Make it easy on yourself and be who you’re supposed to be,” he suggested. “We can catch the same flight back, sit together.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Not happening.” Stretching, he opened the blackout curtains to the neon lights outside his window, giving Josh a better look at him.

He reached over to brush at Sam’s hair with his fingertips. It had grown out so much, Josh thought. He'd never let it get this long in D.C. “You look like a surfer,” he said with a grin. 

“You’ve never seen a surfer in your life.”

“Well, you look like a surfer in a movie,” he decided, “all tan, with the hair. Do you even own a suit anymore?”

“It’s been a week since the election, Josh. You’re acting like you haven’t seen me in years.”

Maybe it felt that way, Josh admitted to himself. Despite his visible fatigue, Sam seemed more relaxed here: less Princeton, less anxious. Almost like losing the race had been a relief somehow. “Nothing but phone calls during the campaign,” he pointed out. “So, really, it’s been months. We make a great team, remember?”

“I appreciate the interest,” Sam said with finality, “I really do. But I'm out. I need a different way to accomplish my goals.”

“Hmm.” Josh had already moved on, in that way of his that left no room for argument but refused to cede the point. Sam gave up for the moment. It was 2 o’clock in the morning, after all.

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Fine.” Josh rubbed a hand over his hair, making it stick up even worse after the plane ride. “Do you have stuff I could borrow?”

“What do you mean?” 

Josh looked down sheepishly. “I was in a hurry. I didn’t exactly book a hotel room, so I was hoping I could stay here. And maybe bum something off you to sleep in?”

Sam laughed. Hand it to Josh to show up unexpectedly, plan to stay without invitation, try to convince him to do what he least wanted to, and then ask to borrow his clothes.

Not that he was likely to say no to any of it. Josh knew him well. 

He waved a tired hand toward the couch. “Go for it. I’ll be right back.”

Grabbing the first set of old pajamas he found, Sam returned from his room and tossed them at Josh. “They might be a little tight. You’re…bigger than me.”

Josh swallowed his smirk at that. “Thanks.” He started stripping before Sam was gone.

Sam flopped back in his own bed with the image of Josh shirtless emblazoned on his brain. There was no reason for it to be weird, he scolded himself as he fell asleep. Josh was shirtless all the time: to play basketball, getting ready for public events, even hanging out off-duty sometimes. 

But being in California made everything feel slightly off-kilter, like a vacation from reality in the endless sunlight. Then there was his new freedom from responsibility–he could go anywhere now, choose just about any job. What did he want?

Swallowing, he closed his eyes against his brain’s automatic retort. He’d left those feelings for Josh behind a long time ago. Or at least he thought he had. Now, with Josh just one door away, he could feel the same ache, rushing back like it had never faded. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe he had been in denial for all these years. 

He laid awake long after Josh started snoring, thinking about all the little moments that had led them here, and where he wanted to go next.

**** 

When he woke back up, Josh was already checking his messages. “When’s your flight back?” Sam asked over coffee. 

“What flight?”

“Your flight back to D.C., Josh. When do you leave?”

“I haven’t got one.” Josh shrugged a shoulder casually. Too casually. 

“What do you mean? They won't let you stay here for long, I know that much.”

“Doesn’t mean I booked my flight yet.” Josh sent him a smile. “Told you, I want to get adjacent seats.”

“Josh…”

“I’ve got two days.” He met Sam’s gaze. “Leo gave me two days for this ‘crazy attempt of mine,’ as he called it, before I have to get my ass back to the Oval.”

“Leo doesn’t think I’ll come back.” Sam nodded, oddly comforted by that. If Leo understood, maybe the others would too…and they would hate him less. “But he let you try anyway.”

“He knew I needed to.” Josh talked about leaving his post with the confidence of someone who sat exactly where he wanted to be, no matter the stress and chaos that surrounded him. Sam had always admired that, while he worried and hoped and was never quite sure if he was where he should be.

But California had taught him one very important lesson: wherever that place was, the West Wing wasn’t it anymore.

“Why did you need to?” He asked when he realized Josh had quietly been watching him think for the last few minutes.

“What kind of dumbass question is that?” Josh frowned, as though he expected better. “We need you, Sam. You belong with us, as part of the team. Everybody misses you.”

A hint of a smile played around his mouth. “Margaret and Bonnie the other day, you should have seen–”

“Everybody misses me.” Sam thought about that, too. It wasn’t ‘everybody’ who had been calling him, arguing the case for his return, keeping in touch. It was just Josh.

“Yeah.”

“Including you. You miss me. And…need me?”

Josh returned to frowning. “Yes.”

“Okay.” Sam nodded, more to himself than for Josh’s benefit.

“Okay, as in you’ll come back?”

He laughed. “No. Okay, as in okay, that’s good to know.”

“Come on, Sam,” Josh pleaded, sitting next to him on the bed. “What’s it going to take to bring you back with me? I’m not leaving until we figure this out.”

“There’s nothing you can do. I’m done as Deputy. I’m done with the West Wing.”

He softened his tone, guilt paining him. “It’s not because I won’t miss you guys too. I just can’t…I can’t go back there and shove myself in where I don’t fit.”

“You keep saying that but it doesn’t make sense,” Josh countered. “Of course you fit. What are you talking about?”

“I left the White House to run for an office that I lost spectacularly. I’m a national joke, Josh. The last thing the President needs is that in his news cycle. Or tarnishing all the ones that come after.”

He winced, remembering. “And god, Toby. He came back here for me, even after I abandoned him. How could I expect him to ever work with me again? You should’ve seen the way he looked at me when I left, Josh. It was like I’d punched his mother in the face.”

“That’s…an oddly specific metaphor,” Josh replied with a smirk. “Toby’s a big boy, Sam. He survived without you. But he would take you back in a heartbeat if you let him. I know he would."

Josh held up a hand. "Just--think about it. Okay? Also, can I use your couch as an office?"

Sam nodded, grateful for a break from the sales pitch. He fixed them both bagels for breakfast.

**** 

Josh spent the day in his apartment, putting out fires over the phone like he'd never left Washington, still wearing Sam’s clothes. The way he sprawled out on the couch in the shorts and threadbare t-shirt made Sam feel like a moron–or a hormonal teenager. Not that the two were very different. 

He took his own phone call, the one he was expecting, while Josh was in the shower, and was glad for the coincidental privacy. 

Maybe it would be better this way. Maybe this could solve his problem. Of course, Josh was a separate problem, an unsolvable one. “Amy’s back,” he dropped casually into their conversation while they dug into their delivered lunches. “Mrs. Bartlet hired her as Chief of Staff.”

“Huh.” Sam nodded, adding this to the mix. “She’ll be great at it.” And back in Josh’s orbit.

“Yeah. She’s going to give us hell,” Josh said, looking mildly nauseous. “But it was kind of my idea, so I have only myself to blame, really.”

“What do you mean?”

Josh told him the story, and he couldn’t help laughing–it was just so Josh. “You’re not planning to try again with her, are you?” he found himself asking, against his better judgement.

Josh was surprised, but recovered quickly. “No. No, I think that would be a pretty stupid idea. Why?”

“Just curious. She’s…and you…” He gestured vaguely. “I know what you’re like with her around, and I wouldn’t want to see you get all torn up again.”

“Yeah. No, we’re on strictly professional terms these days. She was a big help on your campaign,” Josh pointed out.

“I still can’t believe you held back your budget,” Sam told him, spearing salad with his fork. “You shouldn’t have done that when I was so thoroughly screwed anyway.”

“The alternative was being part of the mob that was actively screwing you,” Josh argued. “No way in hell we were we going to do that instead.”

“Should’ve,” Sam mumbled around his lunch.

“Why?”

He swallowed. “Because the federal budget is more important than one congressional campaign, and so is the President’s ability to work.”

Josh shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Why?”

“Because you had Will Bailey lying to me–which means you knew I wouldn’t go for it. And you were right! I would never have been in favor of your idiotic attempt to protect me.”

Josh’s stare was much too intense for the casual lunch they were enjoying. It made the air in Sam’s lungs hitch for a moment.

“Maybe that’s why I kept it from you then. Idiotic or not–and I say not–I have every right to try and do what I think is best for the President…and to try and look out for you.”

“Yeah? When did that happen?”

Exasperated, Josh pushed up from the table. His plate rattled underneath his fork. “God, Sam, I don’t know. When you stopped me from perjuring myself over Leo’s rehab? When you and Lisa broke up and you could barely get out of bed? Two seconds after we met at that party, when all I wanted to do was reach over, grab you and do this?”

And just like that, Josh was in his space, warm hands behind his neck, fingers trailing up into his hair, kissing him like there would be no tomorrow. 

Maybe there wouldn’t be, Sam realized, dazed, as Josh pulled back. This could be the last time they saw each other for years. He could find work here, or in New York, maybe, and Josh would never leave Washington–given the nature of Josh Lyman, he would probably be buried there. They’d bump into each other at a function someday, a Democratic fundraiser where he got his name put on a plaque and didn’t even expect to see Joshua Lyman in attendance, and be complete strangers.

How depressing would that be? How utterly depressing, and heart-wrenching, to look back and know it ended this way?

Well, he decided, since he refused to go and Josh couldn’t stay, they should make the most of the day they had. It didn’t matter that they’d never spoken about the way they sometimes looked at each other, or a night of stolen kisses when they were drunk and stupid and too young to be worried about the political grapevine yet.

What mattered was Josh’s warm breath on his cheek, giving him the space to decide for himself, and broad hands moving down the curve of his back. “Maybe it’s not about my rights at all,” Josh added quietly. “I might just be tired of not doing that.”

Nodding, even though Josh was too close to see it, Sam prepared to enjoy Josh’s surprise–because he knew what Josh expected, and it wasn’t for him to tug him closer and kiss him back.

Josh searched his eyes until he found what he was looking for, then closed his own and let himself get lost. When his tongue found Sam’s, the contact was more intense than when they were kids, his flavor deeper and his touch more heated.

Sam nipped at his bottom lip and he hissed in a breath, oversensitive. He’d done his best to bury these feelings for his best friend, but they’d never gone away, and now it was almost too much, being able to steep himself in Sam’s exquisite taste and scent.

“Wow,” Sam whispered against his lips before deepening the kiss. It was Josh who moaned, and Sam who gripped his arms until his fingernails left little half-moon marks behind, but both of them had to break away for air at the same moment.

“Wow,” Josh agreed, running a shaky hand through his hair. What was he doing? This wasn’t why he'd come here. Of course he missed Sam, desperately some days, but this was purely a business trip. How could he expect him to listen if Sam thought he'd really come just to get him into bed or something? He had to shut it back down.

Josh was trying his best to talk himself back to sanity when Sam met his eyes, those bright, impossibly blue ones like windows he could see right through, and it was as powerful as gravity–all his effort out the window, Sam standing up as they crashed together for a rougher, more forceful kiss.

“Oh, god, I have to–” Josh’s hands were under his ratty sweatshirt, tracing a hot path wherever they touched. 

Sam took his t-shirt back, tugging it up over Josh’s head. “That’s better,” he declared, looking his fill without guilt this time.

“Hmm?” Josh’s fingers were toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“It drove me crazy last night, seeing you change into my shirt. I don’t know why,” he added, letting Josh pull him closer again. “I see you shirtless all the time. But it tripped something in my brain.”

“Well, whatever it was, I like it.” Josh kissed him, letting their lips meet slowly, softly, so that the heat building was a painful throb that threatened to burn them both up. 

When Sam couldn’t stand it any longer, he gripped Josh’s hips, hard, and and enjoyed the sound he made low in his throat. After a few bruising kisses along Josh’s neck, he led him by the hand to his bedroom, where neither of them noticed or cared that the window was open to the breeze.

****

“I got an offer from Gage Whitney,” Sam confessed as they lay tangled up in the sheets later that afternoon.

“You did?” Josh sat up a little to stare at him. “When?”

“This morning. I wanted to give it some time, think about it first, before telling you.”

“Oh.” Josh laid back down, voice flat. “Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.”

“But then I couldn’t. Which you’ll notice, as I’m telling you now, about four hours later.”

“Okay…” With his eyes closed, Josh felt Sam shift his way, settling against his bare chest. He leaned in automatically but didn’t open his eyes. 

“I’m going to take the offer,” Sam told him quietly.

Josh swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. I figured.”

“I can’t go back,” Sam said, reminding Josh of the dark hour when he’d first arrived. So much had changed since that morning and yet here they were, right where they’d started.

“So it’s the private sector then.” There was just a hint of disapproval in Josh’s tone that he couldn’t mask.

“I can’t go back,” Sam repeated, deeply sincere the way Josh loved most, “even more now. It’s not just about the job, Josh. Think about it. What do you want?”

He opened his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“What I’m saying is, I want a career where I can do good, absolutely…maybe even affect change from the inside. Gage Whitney is willing to give me a title bump and more responsibility–turns out getting a man elected President looks good on a resume. But outside of my ambitions, there’s also this.” 

He took Josh’s hand. “Us.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Sam grinned. “The whole dating thing will be a scandal. But at least if I’m out of the West Wing, it won’t be against the rules. I’d rather you not get, you know, fired or anything.”

“No way I’d get fired,” Josh scoffed. Then he kissed Sam’s fingers. “Point taken, though. It’d kill the President in the media for weeks, if not longer.”

“So, see? I’ve always been a good lawyer. I’ll do that. You’ll fight with politicians. And we’ll have this, in the meantime.”

“I like this,” Josh murmured against his mouth.

“Me too.”

“And you are a good lawyer.”

“Thank you.”

“Won’t you miss it, though?”

“Oh, only every day.” Sam sighed, thinking about their first few years in the White House. It was crazy, but glorious. “Maybe I could come meet you for lunch occasionally.”

“I’m sure we could arrange that.”

“They’re letting me pick my location. Maybe if I land at the DC branch of Gage Whitney, we could share an apartment.”

Josh smiled. “Maybe…”

“I mean, you’re a slob, but I think I could stand it.”

“I’m not a slob, I’ve just got too much to do to worry about the little stuff.”

“The little stuff is important,” Sam argued. “If you don’t shut the toothpaste tube all the way, it leaks. Socks belong in a drawer.”

“You’re a control freak.”

“And there is also that,” Sam agreed as they cuddled. “Still…it could be nice.”

“Very.”

“You know what else is nice?”

“What?”

“This.”

“No argument here.” Josh closed his eyes and did the math. Thirty-four more hours until he was expected back. Practically an eternity, when it came to a vacation of sorts with Sam lying next to him.

He turned his most charming grin Sam’s way. “So, you’ll need to meet with somebody at Gage Whitney, right? To seal the deal.”

“Yeah…” Josh’s tone was innocent; his smile anything but. 

“I’ve still got a ticket to buy. How about we fly home together? We can get adjacent seats.”

Sam’s laughter shook the bed and warmed Josh’s chest. 

He was already home.

**Author's Note:**

> Title quoted from "Home" by Gabrielle Aplin.


End file.
